


One Day

by yet_intrepid



Category: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Idealism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-14
Updated: 2013-04-14
Packaged: 2017-12-08 12:57:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/761550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yet_intrepid/pseuds/yet_intrepid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“They are children,” Combeferre says.  “Oh, God, they’re children—and children…children shouldn’t die.”</i>
</p><p>  <i>He looks like a child himself as he glances over at Enjolras, who shakes his head gravely. “No,” he says. “No, they should not.”</i></p><p> <br/>A case Combeferre has met with at the Necker leads him to grieve his young patients and the state of the world. Enjolras is there, recognizing the pain of the present but ready to point out the hope of the future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Day

Combeferre comes home with his head aching and his eyebrows drawn wearily, his hair out of place from having run his hands through it over and over. Enjolras takes one look at him when he walks in the door and gets up to heat water.

“Tea or coffee?”

“Coffee, please,” mutters Combeferre, and sinks down on the couch.

Enjolras sets the kettle to boil and comes to sit on the couch as well, leaving his work at the table. They don’t say anything until Enjolras has gotten up again and brought back two cups of coffee. Then Combeferre, cradling his in hands stiff with tension, takes a deep breath.

“I saw three siblings admitted to the Necker today,” he says. “Ages approximately nine, seven, and four. They were brought for chills, shaking, diarrhea, general weakness. Their older sister—fifteen, and their only guardian—thought they had influenza. They were admitted because they are starving to death.”

He looks at Enjolras with wordless pain in his eyes. Enjolras, meeting Combeferre’s glance as if to allow some of that pain to be poured into his own soul, swallows hard.

“And they are too weak to take food, I suppose?” he questions gently.

Combeferre nods, looking blankly out across the room. “One of them has kept down a little broth. The others are having trouble even with water.”

Enjolras lifts his cup of coffee to his lips and sips from it in order to remind Combeferre that the drink exists. Combeferre notices his action without noticing and takes a long draught, not even wincing at the temperature of the liquid.

“They are going to die,” he says heavily. “They are going to die, and it could have been prevented by simple human decency, and now it cannot be prevented even by all the knowledge we have of medicine.”

He drains the rest of his cup of coffee in two desperate gulps, as if it has the power to anesthetize his sorrow, then sets the cup aside and draws his knees up, wrapping his arms around them. Enjolras moves closer to him, letting him talk, because at least he is talking and not keeping this shut inside his mind.

“They are _children,_ ” Combeferre says. “Oh, God, they’re children—and children…children shouldn’t die.”

He looks like a child himself as he glances over at Enjolras, who shakes his head gravely. “No,” he says. “No, they should not.”

“Children shouldn’t have to endure the effects of an unjust world.”

“No,” says Enjolras, “they should not.”

“Children shouldn’t—they shouldn’t be poor, they shouldn’t be kept from going to school, they shouldn’t have their dreams of what life could be crushed, they shouldn’t…” He takes in a shuddering breath, and tears start to come. “Damn it, Enjolras, I won’t live in a world where children are allowed to starve! I won’t stand by their hospital beds and calmly document it, do you hear? I won’t take this, I’ll…”

“You’ll change the world alone before you’ll bear it?” Enjolras says softly.

“Yes,” says Combeferre. “I will. No—I mean, I have to bear it in the meantime, don’t I. But it’s going to change…it’s got to change…I hate it, Enjolras, so much. All these people. All these people that _could be helped,_ and that have such potential, every last one of them, and the world goes on without even allowing them access to basic necessities. And I look at those three children—and I think of all they could be, if they were fed and clothed and educated and played with and held—and I think that their conditions, their deaths deserve and need to be grieved, but how can I do that and remain their doctor? Remain anybody’s doctor? And if I grieve them, I will begin to grieve all the others…”

Combeferre begins to weep in earnest, and Enjolras puts aside his coffee and holds him, combing his fingers soothingly through his hair.

“One day,” he murmurs, “one day, such reasons for grief will be past, and will fade in the light of the glorious joy shared by the human race. One day love, not death, will reign on the earth. One day childhood will be respected, weakness protected and honored, sicknesses cured. One day poverty and oppression will be erased, and all will be given their rights as members of humanity, as well as their rights as citizens. One day—one day, Combeferre, look at me—one day, children will not die.”

Combeferre’s voice trembles. “It seems so impossible,” he says. “At the least, so far away.”

“But it is coming,” Enjolras says. “It is right to grieve for present wrongs, Combeferre. It is right to ache over the suffering and injustice in this world. But we must also live in light of the future, however far away it may be, when sorrow will be transformed into joy and death swallowed up in victory. And in the meantime, know this—as long as I live, you will never have to try to change the world alone.”

A shaky smile comes to Combeferre’s face. “I know,” he says. “That, I do know.”

And they hold one another fiercely, as if the weight of their embrace bears the pain of the world.


End file.
